


A Different Story

by tastewithouttalent



Series: Sight With Sense [1]
Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depression, Dreams and Nightmares, Hangover, Insomnia, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Divorce, Reunions, Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-08-09 13:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16450832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Spirit remembers, now, whatever else he may have forgotten or lost he recalls that, that impossibility stepping through the door of the bar and coming forward to raise an eyebrow and flicker a smile at him, and even the force of his headache isn’t enough to convince him that was an invention of his intoxicated brain." The morning after a long night of alcoholic forgetfulness, Spirit finds himself with more of the past than he ever thought to have a chance at again.





	1. Nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inujuju](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inujuju/gifts).



Spirit doesn’t remember how he got home from ChupraCabra’s.

This isn’t that much of a surprise. He’s stumbled his way home in one or another kind of stupor most nights over the last few months, he thinks; at least he makes it home somehow, even if he rarely has enough memory the following morning to explain how he landed in his bed instead of over a bar counter or passed out in the shadows of one of the alleys that connects his apartment to the brightly-lit barfront that promises temporary relief from loneliness that is as good as an open flame to the moth of his attention. So when he wakes in his bed the next morning with a headache pounding against his temples and his lips parched to bleeding, he’s more impressed that he apparently managed to get his shoes and coat off before collapsing into bed than anything else. He’s under the blankets, too -- another surprising victory, given how little he can recall of the night before -- and if he’s not comfortable, exactly, he’s far from the entirely miserable he so often feels upon waking to the empty isolation that is all that ever awaits him when he stirs into wakefulness after a night of blissful oblivion.

Spirit doesn’t bother trying to move for the first minutes of consciousness. The headache is enough to persuade him that stillness is the better part of waking, and he knows from too much personal experience that a rapid rising is likely to take him straight to the toilet bowl, if he’s lucky, or the trash can in the corner if he’s not, to hack up whatever remains in his stomach alongside the bile of too much alcohol. Better to stay still, to wait while the room eases from the spinning it offers to him in the first minutes of rousing and blink attention at the wall, and while he lies still and unmoving he lets his thoughts slide back over yesterday to piece together what fragments he can claim of the evening lost to the effect of intoxication.

It’s better to start at the beginning. That much, at least, Spirit remembers clearly, even if it makes him flinch with embarrassment that immediately morphs into a groan of outright pain as his skull protests even this minimal action. He can’t recall what it was at work that drove him to the shine of ChupaCabra’s neon illumination; it makes no difference in any case. Enough that it did push him there, that he made it through the doors slump-shouldered under the weight of his own misery to cast himself onto a bar stool and lift a hand to gesture for his usual, so well-established by repetition that he doesn’t even have to give voice to the request. He remembers drinking the first glass off at once, downing it in a long swallow that burned with the promise of relief even before the intoxication could possibly have set in; the second was waiting as fast as he set down his first drink to lay claim to another. One bleeds into the next from there, a slur of alcohol and laughter and warmth enough to distract if not to chase away the chill Spirit has carried with him for long years, now, ever since he lost--

He moves too fast in sitting up. He can feel it as quickly as he shoves at the bed to force himself abruptly to upright, his shoulders tensing with well-learned instinct against the surge of pain that hits him with the jostling of his headache, but even as Spirit hisses and rocks forward to grab at the sides of his head as if to lock the pain in place his thoughts try to skip ahead, to drag themselves forward even with what little attention he has to spare for them. Because he remembers, now, whatever else he may have forgotten or lost he recalls that, that impossibility stepping through the door of the bar and coming forward to raise an eyebrow and flicker a smile at him, and even the force of his headache isn’t enough to convince him that was an invention of his intoxicated brain.

Stein. Stein back, Stein _home_ , Stein here in Death City, in Spirit’s life, a return to a fixed point so long-lost Spirit had long since given up any hope of returning to the existence that used to orbit the steady gravity of his old meister’s presence. It’s impossible, it can’t be real, there is no way Stein could have so casually strolled back into the space that Spirit’s own loneliness has held open for him for all those years without so much as a call, a letter, a rumor; but no more can Spirit believe himself to have confused dreams with reality, not when that fantasy is one he stopped letting himself have long years ago. It’s what the alcohol is for, to burn away his own lingering nostalgia and grant him the endless black of true unconsciousness to span what few hours of the night he ever spends in his own bed; if that is failing him now as well Spirit doesn’t know what he’ll do. He’ll go mad, he’s sure of it, he can’t bear any further pressure than what has already settled itself onto his shoulders to be borne whether he will or no: and it’s then he remembers the weight of an arm around his shoulders, the press of strong fingers as vivid in his memory as if they left their permanent mark on the black of his scythe-form all those years ago, and Spirit lifts his head from his hands with a hissing inhale as his eyes go as wide as they will go. Stein could be a hallucination, the desperate coping of a psyche pushed too far and collapsing under its own weight; but Spirit has never imagined Stein holding his human form, not in his wildest dreams, not when he has lacked the context for any such sign of affection in all his recollection. But he remembers Stein’s arms around him, remembers the brush of an exhale ghosting through his hair to grant form to that endless absence, and Spirit shoves himself out of bed and stumbles for the door without pausing to so much as smooth his hair or straighten the slept-in wrinkles of his shirt.

There’s nothing. Spirit’s heart is pounding, his gaze skipping from the entryway to the living room to the shadows of the hallway, looking for anything at all to prove Stein’s existence, to evidence the presence of the figure that has so shaped his waking fears and so haunted his sleeping dreams. He thinks he would notice so much as a picture out of place, thinks he ought to be able to sense the crackle of long-lost electricity in the darkest corners of the house even with Stein’s absence. But his frantic need isn’t enough to invent evidence that is patently absent, and his stumbling pace down the hallway towards the living room and attached kitchen does him no better. His couch is the same as ever, down to the angle of the throw pillows scattered haphazardly across it; there’s not so much as a spoon out of place in the plates and cups left in the sink for washing some evening when Spirit musters the willpower or, more likely, the desperation to actually do them. The only possibility of anyone else ever being here is in Spirit’s missing shoes and coat, and those he could have shed himself somewhere in that drunken haze that swept away all the rest of his memories of last night. His apartment is empty, showing all the signs of his own life and none at all of anyone else’s; all that remains are those most fallible of proofs in Spirit’s own memories, and even those are crumbling to the dull thud of his headache as quickly as he reaches for them. He can recall Stein’s hand at his shoulder, can recall the sound of the other’s breathing at his ear; but when he reaches for his meister’s face it’s childhood that answers, the face of the teenager Stein used to be more than the man he is now. Spirit can’t remember the heat of Stein’s breathing, or the color of his hair, or the sound of his voice; and it’s as he’s standing there in the hallway of his apartment, staring at the dishes in his sink and with his breathing shattering to panic in his chest, that the doorbell chimes to jolt him out of even that fragment of memory he has managed to claim for himself.

Spirit doesn’t even think of not answering. He might, if he weren’t so startled; his clothes are a wreck, his hair more so, and he’s sure the evidence of his night of drinking is painted clear in the shadows under his eyes and the lines at his mouth. But the sound jars him so badly that he gasps a “Coming!” before he has time to think, and then his feet are carrying him down the hallway too quickly for his thoughts to catch up to them. His mind wonders at the visitor, offering Lord Death and Maka as possibilities in quick succession; but Spirit has never seen Lord Death leave the Death Room, and Maka has no idea where he lives. It must be a package delivery, although Spirit can’t remember expecting anything, and when he reaches for the door handle to pull it open he’s expecting a parcel waiting on his doorstep rather than a person.

Stein’s head is turned when the door comes open, his attention fixed across the street as he braces his hand to twist idly at the screw set through his skull, but he looks back at the sound of the latch giving way to meet Spirit’s shocked stare. His fingers are still braced at the screw; they flex to shift it through one more motion, hard enough that Spirit can hear something _click_ into place before Stein’s expression eases and his hand drops to his side. He gazes at Spirit for a moment -- a breath of time, but long enough for Spirit to see the color of his hair, the silver-grey of an oncoming rainstorm, and the shadow of his eyes, the same olive-green as his Academy-era memories would paint them -- before he blinks himself into a tug at the corner of his mouth that Spirit only recognizes as a smile when the flicker of it reaches behind Stein’s glasses.

“Hey there, senpai,” Stein says, and lifts his hand into a lazy wave of greeting. “Want me to make you some breakfast?” His jacket shifts, pulling over the dark stitching layered into it; when he lifts his other hand from his pocket he’s holding a container of dark powder. “I brought coffee.”

Spirit doesn’t know what to say. He’d like to sob with relief at this impossible proof so neatly delivered to his doorstep; he’d like to laugh at the idea that Stein has to bribe his way into his life, as if he hasn’t had a place in Spirit’s home for as long as Spirit has had anything meriting the name. But in the moment, with long-dead dreams wrapped in a lab coat and standing on his front porch step, all Spirit can really think to do is huff a breath, and say “Yeah,” and step to the side of the entryway to let Stein in before he shuts the door to keep out his loneliness, at least for a little while.


	2. Tidy

Stein does make breakfast. Spirit would be willing to take anything the other is willing to offer, be it inedible experiments or a cup of instant coffee or even just the secondhand smoke from the cigarettes that crinkle in the other’s pocket with every movement he takes; he’s so caught just in the unreality of Stein’s presence that he doesn’t move from the collapse he makes into one of the kitchen chairs until Stein is returning with a plate of what at least looks like perfectly reasonable scrambled eggs and toast. It’s not gourmet food, by any means, but it tastes approximately like what it’s meant to, when Spirit tries a wary bite; and it feels so much more domestic than anything he’s experienced since his divorce that he has to duck his head and hide behind the weight of his tangled hair to keep the damp at his lashes from giving away his irrational emotion. Stein will surely comment, on the rasp of Spirit’s raw breathing if not the half-hidden surge of tears at his eyes; but Stein doesn’t, doesn’t make any motion to say anything at all. He just leaves Spirit to his breakfast while he returns to the kitchen to clatter through further of Spirit’s dishes. By the time Spirit has made it through his first slice of toast Stein has produced a cup of coffee, somewhat less palatable but much hotter than the breakfast that the other has been working through, and the caffeine does what Spirit’s tears did not and begins to unravel the knot of pressure at his temples. Spirit’s appetite improves with the easing of his headache, until the pain is all but gone as he’s scraping the last of his meal up with the edge of his fork, and it’s only then that he looks up to find Stein sitting on the other side of the table with his hand under his chin and nothing more in front of him than a matched cup of steaming coffee.

Spirit swallows to clear his mouth as he feels a flush of self-consciousness start over his face. “Didn’t you make something for yourself?”

Stein’s shoulder lifts expressively even as the focus of his eyes doesn’t shift from Spirit’s face. “I don’t usually eat breakfast.”

Spirit huffs a laugh that only goes tearful at the very end. “At least not everything has changed,” he says. “Though you learned to cook at some point. That was better than anything I could have managed myself this morning.”

Stein’s mouth curls up at the very corner. “It seemed like a skill that might be useful.”

Stein’s still watching him. Spirit can feel his skin prickling with adrenaline, as if his body has remembered what it is to feel heat only to burn him with telltale embarrassment at every available opportunity. He remembers this, too, now that he’s under the microscope of Stein’s attention once more: this sense of being pinned to a slide, of having every aspect of his appearance and personality and existence laid out in brutal clarity for the other’s gaze. It’s not that there’s any judgment in the steady focus of those eyes; it’s that Spirit can feel his own chest aching with judgment enough of his own, with self-consciousness for all the flaws he can feel rising to perfect clarity under Stein’s gaze, if he didn’t already sob the worst of them into the shoulder of the other’s coat last night. The thought drops his gaze from Stein’s attention to that same white fabric, his cheeks flushing darker as if he can see the damp of his uncontrolled emotion still marked on the fabric, and Spirit can feel all the other thousand signs of his own discomposure drawing to clarity under the unmet focus of Stein’s gaze. The knots in his hair, the tremor in his hands, the wrinkles of his clothes: Spirit thinks he might be less vulnerable if he were stripped naked entirely than with all the disarray of his supposed maturity around him.

“I should clean up,” he blurts, and pushes to stand as quickly as he speaks. “I’m--everything’s a mess.”

“Don’t worry about the dishes,” Stein suggests. When Spirit glances back at him his gaze is level, only raised by the handful of inches needed to hold his focus to the other’s face. “They can wait.”

Spirit coughs a sound. He means it to be a laugh; turned over on his lips as it is it sounds nearly a sob. “Fine,” he says, and lifts a hand to gesture pointedly over his own appearance. “What about me?”

Stein’s gaze slides down Spirit’s body, catching at every fold of fabric as if cataloging it. Spirit’s face goes hotter as he promptly regrets drawing Stein’s attention to his present disheveled appearance, but Stein just tips his head to the side in what might be a nod and might be an attempt to crack his neck before leaning back to slouch farther into his chair. “You have time for a shower, don’t you?”

Spirit does. It’s not as if he’s going to be late making it to the Academy; no one expects him to arrive there until comfortably after noon, and even then there’s nothing like strict timelines. He wonders, sometimes, if anyone would even notice if he just stayed home for the whole of the day; but the risk of success at this attempt is far greater than his curiosity on the subject, and he has no intention of making a trial run. It’s not a concern about being late that stalls his feet at the floor, that keeps him lingering at the edge of the kitchen table even under the uncomfortable spotlight of Stein’s gaze; Spirit can feel the real problem tightening around his chest like lead weights, as if his body is shifting into a partial transformation without his intention to hide from the pain of human existence in the cool, endless quiet of his weapon form. But transforming won’t help him now, won’t save him from the vertiginous fear that is climbing up his spine like paralysis to lock his feet in place, to hunch his shoulders in over the table, to pin his gaze to the green eyes looking back at him as if they might somehow provide strength enough to cling to what has slipped through his fingers like smoke in too many dreams.

“Are you…” Spirit can’t make himself finish the question, can’t put words to what he wants to ask. It’s too much, too big, too impossible; when himself as he was has never been enough, he can hardly expect the ruin he has become to serve as persuasion enough to hold Stein where he is. He presses his lips tight together and works through a swallow that sticks and clings to his throat even as he claims it. “You must have things to do this morning.”

“Hm.” Stein doesn’t so much as shift in his chair. “I’m not in a hurry.” He looks away from Spirit’s gaze and down as he fishes a battered box of cigarettes free of his pocket. “Go clean yourself up, senpai.”

It’s the only thing that could persuade Spirit’s feet to move, he thinks, and that only because it’s less persuasion than order, a command so deep down in the marrow of his bones that he’s moving without thinking. He hesitates at the door to the bathroom, thinking to glance back to see Stein one last time in case he’s gone when Spirit emerges; but then he thinks of that box of cigarettes, and the promise of a few minutes’ delay suggested by one, and he ducks into the bathroom with more haste than anything else.

It takes him longer than he intends. If Spirit had his way he would be cleaned and dressed in a matter of seconds to emerge again and resume his disbelieving stare to fix at least some part of Stein into his memory, into his life, before the meister vanishes again; but his clothes are past help, and his hair is no better, and he does have to shower, however much he may hurry through the process of soaping and rinsing yesterday from his body. His hair holds to the wet, dripping across his bare shoulders until he locates his hair dryer to chase away the lingering damp, and after brushing his teeth he can taste the bitter of last night’s indulgence at the back of his throat until he’s gargled with mouthwash twice. He’s been so long by then that he’s sure Stein has had time to smoke the whole of his box of cigarettes; any hope of beating him is long since past, and Spirit retreats through the door connecting to his bedroom with the weight of resignation in his footsteps.

It’s a better start than he would normally get to the day, he tells himself as he works through the familiar process of dressing himself and knotting his tie and smoothing his hair down over the shoulders of his suit jacket. Spirit doesn’t remember the last time he had breakfast, at least one that happened after and not before sleeping for the night; even the bitter instant coffee did away with the headache that usually clings to him for the first several hours of the day. He’s showered, and dressed, and ready to make his way to the Academy for whatever responsibilities may wait for him there, with hours yet before the time he usually so much as makes it out of his hangover nausea. He’s doing well, thanks to his unexpected visitor; he’s lived all these years without Stein, it’s not as if he can’t take care of himself alone. But Spirit can feel the lie of that thought like an ache in his bones, as if he’s tearing his heart free of his chest outright, and when he steps out of the bedroom it’s with that familiar absence forming itself on his shoulders, the heavier now for the too-recent evidence of what things could be without it.

“Stein?” Spirit calls towards the kitchen, a little less loudly than he ought to. He’s not expecting an answer; at least if he mumbles he can tell himself his voice just wasn’t heard, that Stein is still present instead of already disintegrating from Spirit’s life. “Hey, Stein?”

There’s the sound of a door sliding in its frame, the drag of metal and plastic squeaking over each other. “Yeah?” Spirit stares at the end of the hallway for a moment, more shocked than he would believe at this reply; and then he bolts forward, almost tripping over the few steps it takes to get him to the edge of the living room. Stein is on the other side of the door leading out to the tiny balcony, one hand on the handle and the other bracing a cigarette to his lips; as Spirit watches he takes an inhale and turns his head to breathe out into the open air. “Did you need something, senpai?”

“Stein,” Spirit says, sounding breathless and startled even to his own ears. “You’re still here.”

Stein blinks as the only concession to what Spirit assumes is some measure of surprise. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m going with you to the Academy.” He glances back to consider his half-smoked cigarette. “Are you in a hurry?”

Spirit shakes his head. “No.” His throat is tight; he doesn’t know if he’s going to laugh or cry if he lets the pressure go, and he certainly doesn’t trust himself enough to take the risk. He lifts a hand to push his hair back from his face; the motion is pointless but the movement helps, just for some of the nervous energy it lets him bleed off, and when he drops his hand again he feels somewhat more easy than he did before. “You can finish.” Stein ducks back out through the door and starts to draw it shut before Spirit balks and comes forward, one hand upraised to stop the motion.

“Wait!” Stein stops to look at Spirit again, green eyes level as the other draws to the door. Spirit can feel tension reforming in his shoulders and making his steps awkward with self-consciousness, but he keeps coming anyway, not pausing until he has a hand at the edge of the door to hold it open. “I’ll wait with you.”

Stein steps back from the door to make space for Spirit to step past him. “You sure?” he asks. “You’ll end up smelling like smoke.”

“It’s fine,” Spirit says, and pushes the door shut behind him with enough force to serve as punctuation. “It won’t be the first time.” He comes forward to stand at the edge of the balcony, close so he can rest his elbows against the railing and look out at the city below; after a moment Stein comes in to lean next to him, reclining into comfort at the support as he brings his cigarette to his lips for another drag.

It’s a small balcony, hardly intended to hold more than a pair of houseplants; with both of them on it at once there’s barely space to stand upright, and no possibility at all of anything more relaxed. The lack of space is as good an excuse as anything else for the press of their arms together from wrist to elbow; but Spirit doesn’t pull away, and neither does Stein, and with the warmth of contact pressing against him Spirit can trust Stein’s presence enough to let his gaze wander the streets below instead of mapping the novel familiarity of the face next to him.


	3. Alone

Spirit’s unusual good mood lasts him almost halfway into the afternoon. This is a success in more ways than one: he rarely makes it out of the house in time to see any of the morning, and when he does he invariably does so in a hungover haze too much to allow him to experience anything more than regret. Today he leaves his apartment before ten, and the walk to the Academy that has always seemed so endless alone is made impossibly short just by the comfort of a companion at his side. The fact of it being a meister -- of it being _Spirit’s_ meister, the person he thinks of before Kami, before even Lord Death -- is enough to keep Spirit smiling all the way to the Death Room and through Lord Death’s exclamations of appreciation of his pleasant mood. Spirit feels as if he’s seeing daylight for the first time in months, as if the sunlight beating down against the desert-dry of the city is actually warming his skin when it never seemed to touch him before, and in the glow of that he feels as if he could take on anything, could break through every one of the restraints on his existence that have borne him down to such exhaustion for so many years.

It can’t last. Spirit begins the morning buoyed up by the thought of faint smiles and the remembered warmth of an arm pressing electric-close to his own; as responsibilities line up to demand his attention and energy he supports himself with the press of his hand over his sleeve, weighting against the past-tense friction of Stein’s arm against his own as a means to ground himself. But as the day wears on Spirit’s memory fades more and more, the thrill of Stein’s return wearing away under the mundanities of everyday existence, until by the end of the afternoon Spirit’s touch at his sleeve bears no more heat than what his own palm provides, carries no more force than the memory of a memory of reality. The morning feels impossibly far away, something so long-lost it might as well be a fantasy in itself, and by the time Spirit bids Lord Death goodnight and departs to make his way towards home his smile feels as thoroughly used-up as his recollection of Stein’s.

Stein isn’t waiting for him. It was a foolish hope, Spirit realizes, as he steps out of the Death Room to find nothing more than an echoing-silent hallway waiting for him; but some part of him had still hoped, had half-expected the smell of cigarette smoke and the languid silhouette of Stein reclining against one of the walls to be there as soon as he opens the door. For a moment the expectation is so strong that Spirit can feel electricity in the air, can taste nicotine at the back of his tongue; but when he lifts his head to look there’s no one in all the long corridor that he can see, no more company for him now than he’s had on any other night. Spirit stands in the doorway to the Death Room corridor, a hand still at the door and his shoulders heavy with disappointment; then he blinks hard, and swallows harder, and ducks his head to stuff his hands into his pockets and pace away down the hallway with nothing but the echoing sound of his footsteps as backdrop for the _thud_ of the Death Room door swinging shut behind him.

Spirit thinks of going to ChupaCapra’s as a stop-off on his way home, if nothing else. It would be pleasant to lose himself to the distraction of bright lights and easy smiles, and he thinks he could find some measure of comfort just in someone else’s company, even if their attention is more for the money he offers than for himself. But when he thinks of crossing the blocks of distance it’s last night he’s thinking of, the casual stride of Stein stepping through the doorway of the bar and back into Spirit’s life at one and the same time, and Spirit knows that if he goes he will spend the whole of his evening and all of his money lingering in some pathetic hope of a repeat tonight. The idea hurts to consider, more for the likelihood of failure than even self-consciousness over the desperation it speaks to, and in the end Spirit turns aside from his usual route home to take a more direct path instead and bring himself to the door of his silent apartment before the sun has even fully set. He lets himself in, pausing in the entryway only to shed his shoes and turn over the lock at the door behind him, before he comes forward into the sunset orange of his apartment to take stock of his options for dinner.

He could cook something. Spirit is feeling determined, now, as if his willpower in resisting ChupaCapra’s has granted him a measure of self-assurance he usually lacks; his sense of nobility in his own restraint serves as inertia to carry him into the kitchen so he can take stock of what he has available. He’ll make a proper meal tonight, take advantage of his hours of unusual free time to clean up and cook something reasonable, like a real adult; and then he rounds the corner to the kitchen, and he sees the sink waiting for him.

It’s not that it’s full of dishes. Spirit is prepared for that: he rarely has the willpower to tidy up after a meal, either from intoxication or exhaustion or both, and he’s sure he’ll need to give the kitchen a once-over before it’s anything like clean enough for him to actually make use of. But his dishes are clean, scrubbed and rinsed and set to dry in the rack to the side of the sink, and the sight brings Spirit up far more abruptly than the mess he was expecting would have. He stands at the edge of the kitchen floor, staring at this evidence of Stein’s effort, of the work he must have put into cleaning up while Spirit was in the shower and getting dressed this morning, and in the unexpected proof of someone else’s caring Spirit can feel his determination fall away like ice melting to spill all the strength from his body. His willpower dissolves, his shoulders slump, and for a moment even his vision blurs, the clarity of his sight giving way to the burn of tears. He stands still for a moment, his breath rasping and his eyes wet, before he lifts an arm to rub roughly against his eyes and steps forward to drag at the door to his pantry and pull out a bottle instead of the meal he had intended.

He coughs over the first shot. The alcohol sticks on the knot in his throat, burning against the tears that are trying to choke him until he feels like his whole head is going light on the fumes from the liquid in his stomach; but Spirit just pours another by way of a chaser, downing it with more grace and speed than the first. His eyes are still wet when he sets the glass down to _clink_ hard against the counter and goes to the freezer to retrieve a handful of ice cubes to ease the third drink, but he can blame that on the ache in his throat instead of tears, and the shots are glowing in his empty stomach to burn dizzy distraction through the whole of his body. Spirit pushes the freezer shut again and pours himself a third drink over the ice in his glass, barely waiting for the cold to set in before he takes a sip with somewhat more patience than he showed for his first two, but he’s not really thinking about the taste of the alcohol. It’s intoxication he’s after, and the unconsciousness that will follow this particular round of poor decision making, and when he retreats to the living room it’s with a drink in one hand as he drags at the knot of his tie with the other. He casts himself onto the couch with more speed than care, not paying attention to the slosh of the liquid against the sides of his cup, and takes another sip before setting the glass at the edge of his coffee table so he can turn both hands to pulling his coat off his shoulders and unraveling the knot of the tie cinched close against his collar. The coat goes over the back of the couch, the tie is left to slide free of his shirt and to the floor, and Spirit starts in on unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt as the effects of the alcohol settle into his bloodstream to haze into his vision.

He gets his sleeves open so he can push them up his forearms, baring the flush starting to burn under his skin before fumbling with the button at his collar. It’s only once his shirt is hanging loose around his arms and neck that he settles himself to the couch and reaches for another sip of his drink. It ought to taste good, ought to carry the relief that the glow of alcohol offers every night at ChupaCabra’s; but there’s no laughter here, no smiles and no conversation and nothing to lift Spirit up to buoyant cheer from the fog of intoxication. The alcohol seeps into him, dragging at his thoughts and muddying his movements, until when he finally sets his cup back on the table he can’t tell if it’s closer to full or empty, can’t focus himself enough to give it attention to decide either way. His hands are free, at least, and that’s enough to let him slump sideways across the couch, falling into a half-supported sprawl close enough to prone for his eyes to weight themselves shut as his thoughts scatter themselves out of focus and into the blur of mangled dreams.

Spirit can feel the electricity. It’s like a current running through him, burning along every vein to light him up as surely as a circuit, to bring to life parts of himself that have remained dark and cold for too long. But it’s fading, he can feel it ebbing away, trickling away from his fingertips and dimming in his eyes to leave him dark and cold and alone again, shaking from the chill that followed to take the place of that lost heat. Somewhere there’s machinery whirring, cogs grating over themselves with the endless scrape of metal seeking and failing to find a fixed point; Spirit is reaching, clutching for traction, for support, for the comfort of a human touch, but his hold slides free like a metal handle through an uncaring grip to leave him falling into endless darkness. Light flashes off glass, making a mirrored wall out of transparency, the warmth of laughter goes cold and mocking in Spirit’s ears, and someone somewhere is screaming, stitches are tearing free of bloody wounds and Spirit is reaching and wanting and missing and falling and--

Something hits him hard, jolting through the whole of his body, and Spirit jerks awake with a gasp. He can’t tell where he is, can’t see and can’t move and can’t breathe, and then his hand closes on something and he shoves, and the world spins and jerks itself into orientation around him as a weight smacks against his chest and cold rushes over him. Spirit shoves himself upright, gasping against the shock of the chill against his skin, and it’s only then that his vision swirls back into focus to lay claim to the structure of his life around him. He’s in his living room, just as he was when he fell asleep, but on the floor, now, apparently having toppled off the edge of the couch in the panicked struggle of his dreams. It was that that left him so trapped upon his sudden waking, the fact of being pinned between the coffee table and the couch, and it’s his half-melted drink that toppled over the edge of the table to soak through his shirt when he forced the furniture away from himself. All these facts are perfectly clear, even in the dim lighting left by the sun sinking below the horizon while Spirit slept in the darkness of his living room, but Spirit’s heart is still racing, his breathing still dragging so hard in his chest he can barely claim any air at all. His hand is closed tight against the edge of the coffee table, his arm is braced at the cushion of the couch he just fell off, but he still feels like he’s falling, as if all the stability of the world itself is giving way beneath him to leaving him dropping endlessly away from reality. The thought is disorienting, impossible and too real at once, until panic spikes high enough for Spirit to clutch at the edge of the couch and drag himself to his feet in one terrified motion.

He can’t stay here. His apartment is too dark, too quiet, too full of shadows in which he could lose himself and never find his way out. The streets outside are silent too, cleared by the passage of the hours that he lost to his alcohol-laden dreams; Spirit can’t shake the thought that he’s the only person left alive in all the world, that he slept through some kind of an apocalypse that no one cared enough to wake him for. He stumbles down the hallway in the dark, trusting to familiarity to guide his steps instead of sight, and when he trips over his shoes he catches himself at the front door only long enough to step into them without bothering with lacing them to tightness. He pushes at the lock until it gives way to let him pull his door open and doesn’t bother with turning it back over as he drags the weight closed behind him; it seems worse than pointless, with the silence of the night so heavy around him it seems to bear down against his ears like a pressure. He doesn’t care about the possessions in the space behind him, doesn’t care that the air is chill on his bare arms and against the wet of his shirt; he just needs to be away from here, away from this, far enough from the wreck of his own loneliness that he can find his way back to some kind of hope again. All Spirit wants is another person, the touch of a hand or the glimpse of a smile or even the flicker of a blink, just some proof that he’s not alone in the night-silent world; and when his feet stumble forward to carry him down the sidewalk, he’s happy to follow their lead.

Nothing can be more lonely than his apartment, not even the endless, deathlike peace of the city sleeping around him.


	4. Illumine

Spirit makes it almost all the way through Death City before he collects himself back towards something like sanity again.

He has no idea what came over him. Alcohol in lieu of dinner was obviously a terrible choice, even if it’s one Spirit has made more than a few times before; certainly he doesn’t remember much of what happened between him sitting at the couch and waking on the floor. But the nightmares were something else, whether brought on by intoxication or nostalgia or the bitter hurt of loneliness; even with their details stripped away by his sudden waking Spirit’s whole body tenses when he thinks of them, the horror clear enough to linger even as the clarity vanishes. He ought to go home, he can feel the certainty of that settling deeper into him with every step he takes forward; at the very least he needs to pull on something more than the dress shirt he’s wearing, which is doing nothing to protect the sweat of panic at his skin from the chill of the desert wind biting through the thin fabric. But for every thought he has of turning back his feet carry him two steps forward, and it’s only as he moves past the last of the apartment buildings and looks out to the shadowy shape of the laboratory looming in the distance that he realizes where his body intends to carry him.

He can’t go to the lab. It’s impossibly late, the night so thoroughly advanced that even the most questionable corners of the city have gone quiet; Spirit can hardly deposit himself on the front step of a building that he hasn’t been in for years and expect a welcome from the inhabitant made no better than an acquaintance by the wearing of time on the relationship they once had. But still the shadow draws him, tugging his steps towards it as if he’s a compass following the pull of magnetism towards a pole, and without the willpower to return to the shadowy nightmares of his apartment Spirit finds himself walking across the barren landscape between the city limit and Stein’s laboratory, watching the shadow of the building loom larger against the horizon as his shuffling steps eat away at the distance between himself and it. The moon is high overhead, grinning madly as if it approves of Spirit’s apparent insanity, and he follows the illumination it lays out for him until he’s at the front of the lab itself, his feet against the pavement lining the front courtyard and his head tipped back to look up at the building before him.

Spirit remembers the laboratory as enormous, an impossible, oppressive, gigantic thing looming over him as if to swallow him whole and not even notice. For long years he has told himself this is no more than a delusion, the effect of trauma and nostalgia together making a monster of something no more than a simple building; now, with his neck aching on the angle of his gaze, he can see the truth of it undeniably clear before him. The laboratory is larger than his memory made it, taller and wider and more expansive; in the dark the shape of it seems to swallow up illumination, as if to blot out the sparkle of the stars in the sky. It should be terrifying; right now, with Spirit’s throat aching with loneliness and his shoulders tense on cold, it looks comforting, like the darkness of unbroken sleep to an insomniac, the warmth of a blanket to a freezing body. Spirit wants nothing so much as to step forward into the soft focus of those shadows, to buy himself some absence from the weight of his existence and the burden of the expectations he ever fails to meet; but now, having walked across the whole of Death City in pursuit of this end goal, his feet stall, his strength fails him.

Spirit can feel exhaustion aching in every line of his body, can feel the hollow hurt of his own loneliness thudding agony in the marrow of his bones; and he can’t find the willpower to step forward, to cross that distance and plead for entrance to a world he himself turned his back on too many years ago to count. He’s not who he was, no longer the bright-eyed weapon Stein last laid hands to; he bears the proof of that in every line on his face and every wrinkle of his clothes. He has nothing to offer, no edge left on the ambition that used to run so razor-sharp, and what pride he has left to him is too much to let him cast the burden of his existence on his new-returned meister. Leave Stein to his success, let him have the freedom that will make his natural talent the ascendant star it always should have been; Spirit has dragged enough people down with him, has ruined enough hopes by his meddling. Spirit shuts his eyes, and lifts his face to the chill of the moonlight overhead, and for a moment he wishes he could turn to ash right here, to blow away unseen and unmissed by any of those he leaves behind.

“Are you planning to stand there until you rust, senpai?”

The voice is sharp, clear and carrying even with the monotone familiarity that title always carries with it. Spirit can feel it jolt through him, a spark flaring as of metal meeting metal. His head comes down, his eyes open wide, and there, silhouetted in the now-open doorway of the laboratory: broad shoulders, heavy coat, the shine of moonlight off round glasses. Spirit stares, shocked out of his own misery by this unexpected audience, and in the entrance to the lab Stein lifts a hand to his mouth to brace the cigarette at his lips. There’s a flicker of light, the illumination of a glowing ember enough to shine gold over Stein’s pale face for a moment; then Stein turns sideways, drawing the cigarette away to gesture towards the inside of the laboratory as he exhales a curl of silver smoke into the air.

“You’ll be more comfortable inside.” Stein’s glasses catch the light from inside for a moment, glittering to opacity; then he tips his head just to the side, and the reflection slides free of one lens to leave his eye uncovered. Spirit can’t see the color of Stein’s gaze -- he’s too far away for that -- but the moonlight shines white at the weight of the other’s stitched coat, and when Stein’s lips catch and curve his smile flickers as bright as home. Spirit stares at Stein for a long moment, feeling his throat close up on words, on tears, on warmth; and finally he ducks his head, and coughs himself into a laugh, and steps forward to take the invitation of that outstretched arm and easy smile.


	5. Familiar

“You’re up late,” Stein observes as he takes the lead down the laboratory hallway. Spirit follows in his wake, caught somewhere between uncertainty and familiarity as he moves, as if stepping through the paths of some memory so long-forgotten it’s turned to no more than imagination granted reality by this unexpected invitation. The walls, the decorations, even Stein himself: everything is familiar and not, old and new at once, the shape of a life Spirit remembers as his own even as his present existence struggles to fit within it. He thinks he would be lost, left to wander the echoing hallway on his own; with Stein pacing calmly in front of him it’s easiest to fix his gaze on the other’s shoulders and follow the mismatched stitches rather than trying to pay attention to his own movement. Stein lifts a hand to touch at the screw in his head and turn it by a half-measure; there’s a _click_ , strangely satisfying even to Spirit’s ears, and Stein drops his hand as he tips his head to glance back towards Spirit again. “Were you out at ChupaCabra’s again?”

Spirit shakes his head. His skin is prickling with chill; even inside it’s not much warmer than the bite of the wind. It helps to cross his arms over his chest, a little, but even then he can feel the tremor of shivering working along his spine like it’s trying to break free of his restraint on it. “No,” he says. “I went straight home from the DWMA tonight.”

Stein’s gaze flickers over Spirit from hunched shoulders to untidy shirt hem. “You smell like alcohol.”

Spirit grimaces and hunches farther forward. “I had a nightcap at home,” he says. “And I spilled some on my shirt when I woke up.”

Stein’s eyebrow raises. “Keeping the glass in easy reach?”

“I was on the couch,” Spirit snaps. “I had a nightmare and fell off the--” and he cuts himself off, frowning hard at Stein before him. “This is none of your business anyway, Stein. I’m a grown man, I can take care of myself.”

Stein lifts his shoulder in a shrug. “If you say so,” he says, and turns back to continue down the hallway. Spirit is left to frown unseen at the other’s shoulders, his irritation spending itself fruitlessly against Stein’s lack of concern; it fades quickly, giving way to the force of the cold still running through his shoulders and tensing at his arms. Spirit looks down, fixing his gaze on Stein’s shoes while he grimaces at the unjustified edge on his own words, and when he takes a breath it’s to speak with far more care for his tone.

“Sorry,” he says. “It’s been a long time since anyone worried about me.”

“Mm,” Stein hums, and takes another drag off his cigarette. It’s not really an answer, but he doesn’t sound irritated, and that’s comfort enough to undo some of the strain in Spirit’s shoulders.

They walk in silence for another few paces, turning a corner and down another shadowy corridor, before Spirit clears his throat and reaches for something more to say. “How did you know I was out there?”

Stein exhales a slow breath of smoke. “I felt you.”

Spirit misses a step. “You what?”

“I felt you,” Stein says again, as calmly as if the words make the least sense. “Your wavelength, I mean.”

Spirit huffs a breath. “You remember my soul wavelength?”

Stein’s head barely tips back towards Spirit behind him; it’s not quite enough for Spirit to catch a glimpse of his eyes, hardly enough to see even the quirk of a smile that tugs at the corner of Stein’s mouth, but he can hear the warmth in the other’s voice even half-muffled by Stein’s usual montone. “Of course I do, senpai.” There’s nothing Spirit can say to that tone, even if he knew what to offer in answer to the words, so he contents himself with pressing his lips tight together and ducking in to hide his flush behind his hair as he follows Stein the last few steps down the hallway before they turn to step through a doorway and into a room instead.

It’s warmer as soon as Spirit comes through the entryway, even though there’s nothing keeping the cool in the corridor from the glow of the room to which Stein has led him. It might just be the ambiance alone that makes the difference; the faint, almost green light in the hallway is entirely given over in this room to the warm gold of incandescent bulbs, and the sterile blankness of the walls are replaced here with furniture set out in a functional if not terribly aesthetic layout. Spirit doesn’t care; he recognizes this space, at least, as if he’s stepped backwards in time to his years as a student at the Academy, and the warmth of nostalgia surges pleasure through him even as he steps forward past Stein and into the room.

“Our living room,” he exclaims. “It’s all just the way it was.” There’s a bookshelf in the corner and the desk that Spirit always intended to use to hold a plant but never made use of; the lamp glowing along one wall is one he remembers picking out over a decade ago on his first effort to add some reasonable illumination to the space he shared with his meister. The couch is a little more worn, the cushions showing the marks of a few more coffee spills than it did when Spirit saw it last, but it’s the same furniture, returned or left here as if just waiting for them to return. Spirit comes forward to touch against the soft of the couch fabric, coughing over a laugh that breaks to almost a sob in his throat. “I can’t believe you kept the couch.”

“It was convenient,” Stein says. He’s coming forward from the doorway too, a little more sedately than Spirit’s precipitous rush; he’s taking a last drag off his cigarette as he comes around the edge of the couch so he can lean over and crush out the stub against the ashtray on the coffee table. His coat drapes heavy around his shoulders and hangs open as he bends over; it’s only when he straightens again that Spirit can see the outline of the other’s body as Stein turns to face him. “You can sit down, if you want.”

Spirit comes around the edge of the couch to obey the suggestion as soon as it’s given. It feels strange to be back here, like he’s rolling the time back on the decade and a half that has passed since he and Stein last shared this space; it feels like a relief, as if he left all his adult worries at the front step in exchange for the comfort of the last place he can remember really feeling at home. The couch gives way to the weight of his body, curving in to shape itself to Spirit’s form as he casts himself onto it, and Spirit lets his arms fall heavy to his sides and tips his head back against the support behind him, shutting his eyes as he heaves a breath that seems to take all the strength from his body with it.

The couch shifts, the cushions moving as Stein comes in to settle himself on the other end of the furniture with a little more grace than Spirit demonstrated in his boneless collapse. “Do you want some coffee?”

Spirit shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I just want to sleep.” His yawn catches him halfway through the last word to grant truth to his statement; for a moment his ears are ringing with the force of the movement, and when it passes he can feel the strain lingering against the inside of his chest. “I’m exhausted.”

Stein hums a vaguely sympathetic sound. “So sleep.”

Spirit turns his head and opens his eyes to gaze at Stein. “Can I?” He means the question to be amused, almost mocking; somewhere in the strain in his throat and the ache in his chest it becomes pleading by the time it spills past his lips.

Stein doesn’t even look over at Spirit. “Sure,” he says, and lifts his arm to rest against the back of the couch. His fingers touch at Spirit’s hair, settling in to cradle against the side of the other’s head before he tugs to urge the other sideways. Spirit’s moving as soon as Stein pulls at him, his body responding with the instinct his weapon form might, as if his exhaustion is bleeding over the lines between his two existences, and when gravity catches at his balance he topples over entirely to fall to the cushions of the couch. His head lands against Stein’s thigh, Stein’s fingers settle in against his hair, and Spirit is left sprawling over the whole of the couch, his head pillowed in Stein’s lap and his thoughts too dizzy for him to catch. His hand curls against the edge of the couch, his arm strains over the thought of pushing himself back upright, but when he shudders an exhale it’s only to find breath to speak.

“Are you sure this is okay, Stein?”

The fingers at Spirit’s hair slide in and down, pressing through the strands in what would be a caress from anyone else, in what Spirit isn’t completely sure isn’t one even coming from Stein. “Yes,” Stein’s voice says, humming so warm against Spirit’s spine that he imagines he can feel the force of it like a touch. “It’s late, senpai.” A thumb traces the outline of Spirit’s ear; fingers catch and urge the weight of Spirit’s hair off his neck. “Go to sleep.”

There are a thousand things Spirit could offer as protest to this. He’s intruding, he’s tipsy; this isn’t his home anymore, this isn’t his life anymore, Stein isn’t his meister anymore. But the apartment he left behind him is no more home than the familiarity around him now, and the life he’s been leading is no more his own than the title he drops as easily as his coat; and Stein’s voice hums in his bones, and Stein’s fingers are gentle in his hair, and the temptation and the order of that command together are more than Spirit can resist. His lashes draw themselves shut of their own accord, his breathing draws deep on comfort in his chest, and he lets Stein’s touch in his hair soothe his thoughts and him down into the comfort of sleep without rebellion.


	6. Synchronize

Spirit wakes suddenly. It’s not a dream, this time; he thinks he was more deeply asleep than he has managed for weeks, the endless, all-encompassing dark of true unconsciousness swamping the possibility of dreams outright, good or bad. It’s something else, like some sharp fear remembered suddenly or the panicked sensation of falling, that brings him jerking awake with a strangled gasp that comes out as a shout. He kicks out, struggling for traction as his hand shoves hard against the first thing he finds, and then there’s something against him, a hold bracing him in place even as he struggles against it. Spirit’s hand comes up to grab and shove against the resistance, whatever it is holding him down for that sense of overwhelming danger breaking over him, and then there’s a voice too immediate in Spirit’s psyche to be ignored.

“ _Senpai_.” Spirit gasps a breath and blinks hard, his vision clearing of the haze of panic that gripped him to leave him seeing his surroundings again. There’s grey everywhere, in the shadows and pooling in the gold of the light, and then his eyes catch the sharp line of an edge, and he realizes he’s seeing the lip of a table at the same time pressure weighs down on his shoulder to brace him in place. “You’re fine, senpai.”

“Stein,” Spirit says, in a voice so strange and strained it comes past his lips like a croak. He’s lying down, he realizes, angled across the soft support of a couch: Stein’s couch, in Stein’s lab, as his memory catches up to provide context for him. He has one elbow halfway under him where he was trying to shove himself free in his first panic of waking; the pressure at his shoulder is Stein’s grip steadying him from falling entirely off the couch and into the edge of the coffee table in front of them. Spirit lifts his head to look up at the figure next to him and gusts a breath at the shine of illumination off thick glasses. “You’re here.”

One of Stein’s eyebrows lifts towards the fringe of grey hair framing his face, but all he says is “I’m here,” in a tone with no trace at all of the amusement Spirit might expect to find there.

“Oh.” Spirit ducks his head to fix his gaze on the floor, locking his focus to steady himself as he pushes against the cushion to urge himself to upright. Stein lets his hold go as Spirit straightens into balance of his own, his touch sliding down from Spirit’s shoulder to press gently at the middle of the other’s back instead. Spirit thinks that touch might be doing more to steady him than anything he’s managing in himself. He lifts his hand from the couch under him to push through his hair in a half-hearted attempt to compose himself, but no sooner does he drop his hand to his side again than his hair tangles around his face once more and his sense of balance wavers as if he’s drunk all over again.

“God,” he groans, half-under his breath but with the full weight of resignation on his tone, and ducks his head forward to hide the bitter edge of the laugh on his lips. “I’m a disaster.”

Stein stirs against the couch next to Spirit; the hand at the back of Spirit’s shirt slips down to sketch out the shape of comfort. “You’re fine.”

Spirit shakes his head. “I’m not,” he says, with as much honesty as he has ever had to offer. “I’m not sleeping. I’m drinking too much. I’m barely doing my job at all. I’m sure I would have been fired ages ago if there were anyone else around to be a Death Scythe.” He braces both hands at the edge of the couch and rocks forward to hunch in against the support. “My daughter hates me, my ex-wife left me. There’s no one in the whole of Death City who can stand to be around me.”

The hand at Spirit’s back slides, drawing down by a span before coming back up as it urges comfort in against Spirit’s skin. When Stein speaks his voice is perfectly calm, as if he and Spirit are talking about some scientific experiment instead of the other’s imminent emotional and psychological collapse. “I’m here.”

Spirit coughs a breathy laugh. “Sure,” he says. “For now. How long are you going to stay? Do you even know?” He tips his head to look sideways at Stein next to him; he’s sure it’s only the twist of the humorless smile at his mouth that’s keeping him from outright tears, but at least he still has that much. “How long before you leave me alone again?”

The light is catching at the lenses of Stein’s glasses. It makes it impossible to see the shift of his gaze, to read the color of his eyes; all Spirit can see is the flat line of his mouth, the same stoic composure that he remembers so vividly from their shared past, that calm distance with which Stein met conflict and celebration alike. It feels like a foundation, to have it back now, as if the source of all Spirit’s gravity has returned to save him from the endless freefall in which he’s been trapped for years; and then Stein shifts his shoulders and lifts his hand from his side to touch Spirit’s hair. His fingers press against the locks, stroking through the color to urge it to smoothness behind the other’s ear; his touch steadies at the back of Spirit’s neck, the contact lingering as he lifts his other hand from Spirit’s shoulderblades to smooth back the rest of his hair from his features. Stein’s touch is startlingly gentle, like he’s guiding himself around the possible hurt of knots and careful to avoid bruising the other’s skin; when his hands settle against the other’s head Spirit’s attention is held by the weight of thumbs just behind his ears, by the press of fingers cradling the back of his head. He can’t recall the last time he felt so steady, the last time someone touched him with so much care, and he’s still caught in the heavy-lidded appreciation of the simple warmth of human touch when Stein leans in over the inches between them to press his mouth gently to Spirit’s lips.

It has been a long, long time since Spirit last kissed anyone. His life has been a cold one for years, with no more companionship than what loneliness and daydreams can form for him; he thinks, sometimes, that he would be willing to offer anything just for the comfort of someone else’s arms around him. The heat of lips pressing to his own is something so far in the ancient history of his ruined marriage that for a moment he can’t recall what to do, can’t think through the appropriate response to give; all he can manage to offer is the flutter of his lashes shadowing over his eyes, and some soft noise far in the back of his throat, rising on surprise but formed around desperate appreciation. Fingers tighten against his head to brace him still, to keep him upright where he’s sitting against the couch, and it’s just as Spirit lifts a hand to touch trembling fingers against the outside of Stein’s wrist that Stein draws away to separate their lips as gently as he brought them together.

“I’m here,” Stein says, and it’s the same words he offered before but there’s a weight to them, a strength as if they have gained force and substance by the friction of Stein’s mouth against Spirit’s, by the heat of Spirit’s lips catching at Stein’s. The illumination on his glasses is gone, spilled sideways to leave the lenses transparent once more. Spirit can see the palest flecks of gold amidst the green of Stein’s gaze, fixed as entirely on Spirit as if nothing else in the whole world exists at the moment. “You’re my weapon, senpai.”

Spirit’s breath rushes from him as if Stein has forced the exhale free of his lungs. “Still?”

Stein’s mouth catches and curls on tension at the very corner. His thumb behind Spirit’s ear shifts fractionally, as if to stroke against the strands. “Always.”

Spirit shudders over his inhale. His eyes are burning, his lungs are aching, but when he draws air into his chest he can feel the whole sweep of it, as if he’s been set free of steel bands that have been slowly crushing him out of existence. “Oh,” he says, and then, as his fingers curl to tighten on Stein’s wrist under his hold, “You’re my meister,” in a rush as if it’s a confession.

Stein’s smile breaks over the whole of his mouth, this time, coupled with a huff of breath that Spirit feels warm against his skin. “I know,” Stein says, and this time when his thumb slides over Spirit’s hair Spirit is ready for the other’s movement, shutting his eyes in expectation as if he’s reading Stein’s motion from that point of contact between them. Stein’s lips press to his own, fitting against Spirit’s mouth with all the grace of nonexistent experience, as if acting on some instinct for what they have never done before, and when he draws away Spirit trails him involuntarily, drifting closer in pursuit of the other’s mouth even as Stein’s hands steady his head. Stein’s smiling still, his lips curving on more affection than Spirit has ever seen there before, but what he says is “You should rest,” in a tone as level as if he’s been casually kissing Spirit for the whole of his life. “It’s late.”

Spirit grimaces as a means of protesting this since he can’t truly give voice to a denial of basic facts. “You’re not going to sleep, are you?”

Stein’s shoulder lifts in a shrug. “Who knows.” His hand slides from Spirit’s hair down to the flat of the other’s shoulderblade; when he tugs Spirit rocks forward and over the gap between them, guided by the hand in his hair and the touch at his shoulder to come in and down against Stein before him. His head lands at the other’s shoulder, his weight tips in to rest against Stein before him, and Stein’s hand at his hair slides up, this time, to catch Spirit in the cradle of his elbow.

“I’m here,” Stein says, speaking softly but so near to the other’s hair that Spirit can feel the heat of the words ruffling against the strands. Stein’s hand at his shoulder draws down to his waist and against the curve of his hip to settle against his back. “Sleep, senpai.”

Spirit looks at the collar of Stein’s coat: dark stitches, pale fabric, rumpled folds. He can see the line of Stein’s jaw, the angle of bone under the other’s skin leading down to the tension at his neck and the shift of his throat; his pulse is beating just under the skin, finding a rhythm for itself from within the quiet of the night. Spirit watches the pace for a moment, his hazy attention fixed to the steady thud of Stein’s heartbeat; then he lifts his free hand to reach out and catch his arm around Stein’s waist. Stein eases to the touch, some of the tension in his body giving way as Spirit’s arm settles around him, and Spirit turns his head in to pillow against Stein’s shoulder, and shuts his eyes, and lets his breathing find its way into sync with Stein’s against him.


End file.
